Riot Games recently unveiled their new publishing company Riot Forge. Riot Forge is meant to be an extension to the Riot games platform, but under a different objective. Its goal is to partner with other studios in order to produce new titles. Riot are especially interested in “completable” games, which they have little experience with. Studios will have the freedom to create and shape the games as they please. Riot’s role would be to act as supervisors and story consultants.
Riot is taking a big step in collaborating with outside studios and allowing them to do what they want with League of Legends and all associated lore and history. Hopefully the end results will be fruitful but that is something that the fans will have to wait to see. As of yet, there are no confirmed titles in development from Riot Forge. I for one would like to see an RPG the likes of Skyrim or even something with the board game type system like Armello or For the King. One potential way to do it would be using Quantic Dream’s game model, where you play as multiple characters in one overarching story that could take place in one of the territories of Runeterra.
Riot Launcher?
Riot recently also changed the log-in screen for League of Legends. They opted to set it up somewhat like a separate client before the main League of Legends login screen. This, as well as their recent change of unifying players’ separate League of Legends accounts into one “Riot Account”, seems to hint at the possibility of a big, universal Riot Launcher sometime in the future. Something like this could come after the release of the new games from the studio. It would make sense considering their expanded library, and the rise of many new brand-specific launchers in recent years.
With League of Legends being the massive worldwide phenomenon that it is, it would be interesting to see how a standalone Riot launcher could rival the likes of the Epic Games Store, or the the Bethesda or Rockstar launchers. The studio’s library will grow at a rapid rate in the coming years. The Riot Forge announcement came after League of Legends’ 10th year celebration in which Riot Games also announced their developments in other game genres. They have a new hero shooter on the way, dubbed Project A, and a fighting game. Legends of Runeterra, a League of Legends themed online card game is also in development. They are even working on a League of Legends spin-off MOBA, Wild Rift.
Another big question is if the production of all these new titles will be of any hindrance to the current state of League of Legends or any of its future updates. With so many projects in the works, Riot may need to expand to run them all simultaneously. Alternatively, they will need to divert resources from the teams that they currently have set up, if they haven’t already.
